1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to communicating natural phenomenological forecast information. In particular, the present invention is directed to a method for computing and conveying, using an easily recognized scale, the likelihood and degree of severe weather at a geographically defined location.
2. Description of Related Art
The National Weather Service (NWS) has traditionally issued warnings, watches, alerts, and advisories that describe the nature of severe weather threats. Those communications are typically in the form of text bulletins that cover a geographically large area, such as a county or larger region, and they do not generally differentiate between different threat levels, even when in effect for long time periods, such as six hours or more. Even when depicted graphically, those communications do not convey the specific level of risk of the severe weather threat and they generally cover a relatively long time period.
Consider NWS warnings and watches, for example. In terms of spatial differentiation, the NWS issues tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings using maximum granularity defined by zones that typically cover an entire county (some counties are divided into two zones). The NWS issues tornado and severe thunderstorm watches covering zones, but NWS watches often cover much larger areas.
In terms of temporal differentiation, the NWS severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings are typically issued minutes in advance of severe weather affecting a zone, and they are generally in effect for an hour or less. Other NWS warnings and watches may be issued with more advance notice and may be in effect for substantially longer periods of time.
In terms of severity differentiation, while the intensity of tornadoes and hurricanes are denoted by traditional 5-point scales (e.g., the Fujita Tornado Scale and the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale), the risk for any particular location is not denoted by a scale. Other scales utilize either a yes/no approach or a high/significant/low risk approach to designate risk.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,654,689 to Kelly et al., a system and method for generating storm warnings that are tailored automatically for a particular individual or business user's geographic location of interest is disclosed. In particular, the patent discloses a system whereby a user can establish a user profile defining a particular geographic location of interest and a contact address to which the user's personalized storm warning is to be delivered. The user may also establish a storm profile defining attributes of a storm for which the user desires a storm warning to be provided and an amount of advanced warning time to be provided by the personalized storm warning. The system then computes information describing a storm's severe weather conditions as well as the location and forecasted track of the storm. The forecasted storm track is compared to the user's profile and, for profiles defining locations of interest within the forecasted storm track, and if the storm track characteristics meet the user's defined attributes and advanced warning characteristics, a personalized storm warning is automatically generated. The personalized storm warning preferably identifies the storm conditions approaching the user's geographic location of interest, and the estimated time of arrival at that location. FIG. 5 of the Kelly et al. patent discloses an exemplary textual personalized e-mail storm warning provided to the user. The invention disclosed in the Kelly et al. patent does not include a storm warning including the likelihood or risk of a severe weather threat at a location and the degree of severity of the threat on an easily comprehensible scale.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,018,699 to Baron, Sr., et al., discloses a system for providing real-time site specific weather information having a weather alert manager that receives meteorological data and combines the meteorological data with a geographical grid covering a predefined geographic area to produce a storm profile for the storms within the geographical area, such that the geographic grid partitions the geographic area into a plurality of cells. The Baron, Sr., et al. patent also does not disclose providing a severe weather threat scale that depicts the storm profiles computed by the weather alert manager in an easily comprehensible scale.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,339,747 to Daly et al. discloses a system and method for preparing and manipulating a weather display including accurately displaying the current position of a weather storm cell and predicting and displaying a future path of the cell. The patent discloses and illustrates the use of well known storm cell and hurricane path cone- or fan-shaped probability distributions that cover the area forecast to be impacted by the severe weather threat. However, from a visual perspective, those probability distributions do not provide an easily comprehensible scale of the degree of risk for the relevant time for the risk of the severe weather threat at a given geographic location forecast to be impacted by the severe weather. Moreover, they do not provide the intensity level of the threat.